efficacy: the effectiveness of a treatment used in medicine or psychotherapy.

ego: (Latin for ‘I’) in psychoanalysis, the part of personality that serves to mediate between id and superego, by directing instinctual drives and urges into appropriate channels.

egocentricity: evident at the preoperational stage, whereby a young child is unable to take the perspective of another person. Piaget’s ‘three mountains’ experiment is a test of egocentricity, as children are unable to see how the ‘mountains’ would look to a child at a different location.

elaborative rehearsal:
the active processing of items to improvememory, through a
variety of methods, from focusing on sensory characteristics
(visual appearance, sound) to an emphasis on the semantic
content (meaning) of information.

electroconvulsive
shock treatment (ECT):
the use of passing small amounts of electric current through
thebrain, inducing a convulsion or epileptic seizure, as an
effective treatment for severedepression.

electroencephalograph
(EEG):
anon-invasive method of recording the electrical activity of
thebrain,
by fixing electrodes to the scalp.

emancipation
(psychological):
The step by step development of the
personality of a self-reliant mature individual. All
good education guides towards mature self-reliance andself-realisation.

endogenous:caused by factors within the
body or mind or
arising from internal structural or
functional causes.

endogenous pacemakers:
inherited mechanisms important for the regulation ofbiological rhythms, particularly in the absence of external
cues. The principal endogenous pacemaker in mammals is a
small group of cells in thehypothalamus, known as thesuprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which regulates the
production of melatonin in the pineal gland.

endorphins:
a
neuropeptide which plays an important role in pain and mood
states.

ergonomics:
the study
of the ‘fit’ between human operators and their workplace,
which can be used to design working environments that
maximise user efficiency.

estimator variables:
in witness testimony, variables that affect the accuracy of witness
testimony, that the justice system has little control over,
including weather and amount of time witness was at the
scene

ethical guidelines:
prescriptive guidance (e.g. clear guidelines published by the BPS) on the conduct of psychologists in research and practice, to oversee what is acceptable within the
pursuit of a specific goal, including informed consent, right to withdraw and debriefing.

ethical hedonism: the view that individuals engage in moral behaviour, such as altruism, because it provides some personal advantage.

ethics: a major branch of philosophy. The study of principles relating to right and wrong conduct; Morality; The standards that govern the conduct of a person, especially a member of
a profession.

ethnocentrism: the practice of researching or theorising from the perspective of a particular ethnic, national or cultural group.

euphoria: a feeling of happiness, confidence, or well-being sometimes exaggerated in mood disorders as mania.

evolutionary psychology:
the application of evolutionary ideas, including the
importance of behavioural and mental adaptiveness over
millions of years, to help explain human behaviour.

experimental psychology: is a field of psychology that typically involves laboratory research in basic areas of the discipline.

experimenter effects: when an experimenters behavior or characteristics influenceparticipants, through subtle cues or signals, that can affect the performance or response of subjects in the experiment.